Special considerations for year 12 exams

Year 12 students due to begin their final exams in two weeks will be offered special consideration because of the disruption to their academic year as students return to classrooms.

The state's entire school cohort has now resumed face to face learning after four months of home schooling.

The NSW Education Standards Authority's new COVID-19 special consideration program is open to students whose learning was compromised for six weeks or more due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Applications are made by principals on behalf of individual students, but entire cohorts are eligible in the 12 local government areas that were marked as areas of concern during the latest outbreak.

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said students in those designated COVID hotspots were significantly affected and the program would allow NESA to "make sure marks are moderated in a way that fairly reflects the learning environments and experiences the children had this year".

The school captain at one of those schools in Fairfield West said most students were now focusing on the upcoming exams.

Fairvale High School captain Nicholas Ly said he and his fellow students were "a bit anxious, but that's I guess healthy, it is the final exam".

Sport will also return next week, with schools able to use external facilities in line with the guidelines for the return of community sport and stage inter-school sport outside school hours.

Other restrictions will be reviewed during the next few weeks.

Premier Dominic Perrottet said playing sport was a big step towards getting things back to normal for students.

Fairvale High School principal Kathleen Seto said sport "will be really good for our students' mental wellbeing" and this would be a "settling-in week" for many returning students.

Students in years 2 to 11 returned to schools on Monday, a week after year 1, year 12 and kindergarten.

NSW Education announced 16 schools were closed for cleaning and contact tracing on Monday following positive COVID-19 tests in their communities.

The premier said primary schools remained vulnerable to outbreaks but he was looking forward to when children under 12 could get vaccinated.

He applauded the overwhelming majority of teachers - 95 per cent of whom are fully vaccinated.

"We can't force people to be vaccinated but ultimately we need that to keep our children safe particularly in circumstances where primary kids can't be vaccinated at this time," he said.

"The result today has been from the extraordinary effort of teachers so we owe you a great debt of gratitude."

Nearly 78 per cent of 12-15 year-olds have had their first COVID shot and just more than half - 50.8 per cent - are fully jabbed.

All teachers are required to be fully vaccinated and vaccines are recommended for students 12 and older.

Masks are compulsory for teachers and high school students and are strongly recommended for primary school students.